Overgrowth

Three-year-old Stasia wandered into the forest and was eaten by an alien plant that digested her and remade itself in her image, sending her back home to tell everyone that an alien stole the real Stasia and one day they will come back for her. Thirty years later, Stasia is still compelled to tell everyone she meets about her true nature, and the alien invasion she prophesied is now only 25 days away. Told entirely through Stasia’s eyes, the novel plays with the concept of the unreliable narrator. Like the best sci-fi, this story is more about the world we live in now than the near future in which it is set, and like the best horror, it is bleak and unflinching, discomfitingly forcing readers to contemplate their own lives, choices, and places in the universe. Grant infuses her version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with heart, found family, and hope, even as “the harvest” comes, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.